Implementation of Constrained DFT for Computing Charge Transfer Rates within the Projector Augmented Wave Method.

Combining constrained density function theory (cDFT) with Marcus theory is an efficient and promising way to address charge transfer reactions. Here, we present a general and robust implementation of cDFT within the projector augmented wave (PAW) framework. PAW pseudopotentials offer a reliable frozen-core electron description across the whole periodic table, with good transferability, as well as facilitate the extraction of all-electron quantities. The present implementation is applicable to two different wave function representations, atomic-centered basis sets (LCAO) and the finite-difference (FD) approximation utilizing real-space grids. LCAO can be used for large systems, molecular dynamics, or quick initialization, while more accurate calculations are achieved with the FD basis. Furthermore, the calculations can be performed with flexible boundary conditions, ranging from isolated molecules to periodic systems in one-, two-, or three-dimensions. As such, this implementation is relevant for a wide variety of applications. We also present how to extract the electronic coupling element and reorganization energy from the resulting diabatic cDFT-PAW wave functions for the parametrization of Marcus theory. Here, the combined method is applied to important test cases where practical implementations of DFT fail due to the self-interaction error, such as the dissociation of the helium dimer cation, and it is compared to other established cDFT codes. Moreover, for charge localization in a diamine cation, where it was recently shown that the commonly used generalized gradient and hybrid functionals of DFT failed to produce the localized state, cDFT produces qualitatively and quantitatively accurate results when benchmarked against self-interaction corrected DFT and high-level CCSD(T) calculations at a fraction of the computational cost.

Dispersive and covalent interactions between graphene and metal surfaces from the random phase approximation.

We calculate the potential energy surfaces for graphene adsorbed on Cu(111), Ni(111), and Co(0001) using density functional theory and the random phase approximation (RPA). For these adsorption systems covalent and dispersive interactions are equally important and while commonly used approximations for exchange-correlation functionals give inadequate descriptions of either van der Waals or chemical bonds, RPA accounts accurately for both. It is found that the adsorption is a delicate competition between a weak chemisorption minimum close to the surface and a physisorption minimum further from the surface.

Density functional study of the adsorption and van der Waals binding of aromatic and conjugated compounds on the basal plane of MoS(2).

Accurate calculations of adsorption energies of cyclic molecules are of key importance in investigations of, e.g., hydrodesulfurization (HDS) catalysis. The present density functional theory (DFT) study of a set of important reactants, products, and inhibitors in HDS catalysis demonstrates that van der Waals interactions are essential for binding energies on MoS(2) surfaces and that DFT with a recently developed exchange-correlation functional (vdW-DF) accurately calculates the van der Waals energy. Values are calculated for the adsorption energies of butadiene, thiophene, benzothiophene, pyridine, quinoline, benzene, and naphthalene on the basal plane of MoS(2), showing good agreement with available experimental data, and the equilibrium geometry is found as flat at a separation of about 3.5 A for all studied molecules. This adsorption is found to be due to mainly van der Waals interactions. Furthermore, the manifold of adsorption-energy values allows trend analyses to be made, and they are found to have a linear correlation with the number of main atoms.